Machu Picchu

Dark and early on Monday June 4th, I set out to go to Peru. Our plane left Santiago, Chile, around 7:00 am, and we were in Cusco, Peru, by the afternoon. Here is us in the airport. Some of us were very hyper and some of were not quite awake at this point of the trip, but the emotions were high because we were going to Perú! Once we got to Cusco, we all battled the effects of altitude sickness. I, like most of my friends, only suffered from pressure in my head and on my chest and an ease of breathlessness whenever I climbed up anything. Two of my friends were not so lucky. Thank goodness that the hostel in Cusco had an everlasting supply of coca leaves. At their recommendation, we made tea (I always added lots of sugar, because otherwise it tasted like grass). It helped with the head and chest pressure. We settled into our 14-bed room at the hostel and explored the closest plazas a little bit that day. To me, it seemed like Peru was the stereotype Peru. There were many ladies and men wearing brown sombreros, carrying their belongings or wares in bright colored blankets on their backs with their donkeys in tow on a string. Many women carried their children, sometimes children who seemed too old to need carrying, on their backs in blankets. The people [in general] seemed to have much darker brown skin and darker hair than their Chilean compadres, in addition to seeming much shorter. But there were also people who did not fit the stereotype at all. There were those who wore suits who seemed like they could be walking to work down on Wall Street.

 After finishing many administrative things the next day, including exchanging our Chilean Pesos / US Dollars to Peruvian Soles and purchasing Machu Picchu tickets, we boarded a bus that took us to Ollantaytambo. This picture is a view of the countryside on the way there. In Ollantaytambo, we explored the city and the Inca ruins that were there. These ruins are in the next picture. These ruins were our first ruins that we got to see, so I remember we were super excited to explore them. We were so energetic. We bought tickets that would get us into 16 different ruins sites/museums over the course of the next 10 days. We also ate some pizza in a little restaurant. Then we boarded a train that would take us from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes, the jump off point for Machu Picchu. On this train, my friend and I sat across from a couple from Arizona who was preparing to trek the Inca Trail, a 4-day trek that ultimately leads to Machu Picchu. It was fun to listen to them talk with their personal guide about the trip and all of the other places in the world they had seen. Once in Aguas Calientes, we found food and water for the next day, supper for the night, and our hostel. We were amazed at how we could see the dark outlines of the ominous, yet majestic mountains that surrounded the entire city even though it was the dark of the night. I think that this skyline was the smallest that I have seen anywhere in my life. For a visual, if a person raised their arms above their head to point to 11 and 1 on a clock, the sky would have been between their arms, while mountains were everything else. Wow. We headed to bed promptly that Tuesday night because we knew Wednesday would be a doozy. 

Wednesday we woke at 4am, and we were in line with tickets for the bus up to the entrance to Machu Picchu park by 5:30am. We were on the third bus that headed up the mountain. We had heard that there would be a lot of people, like shoulder-to-shoulder crowds, but were pleasantly surprised to find that there were not that many tourists there yet. I think that's why were able to get such great photos, like this one. This was our first full view of Machu Picchu. The next picture includes me and my friends Claire and LeeAnn.

We were stoked to be at Machu Picchu. We opted to talk to a guide until after we had hiked up the mountain Machu Picchu, so we first explored the Incan ruins on our own. It was cool to see the old things and speculate what they could have been. Through our meanderings of the city and our passing of other groups with tour guides, we gathered that Machu Picchu at one time could have been home to 500 people. There were specific spots for agriculture (stairs of land with stones that built up the vertical part and grass on the horizontal parts), a university, a central plaza, houses, and a religious sector that included different temples and sacrificial and priest chambers. If the stones on the walls were more smooth and put together with more care, the purpose of the rooms were more significant. For example, this room in my picture on the left, although eroded on one wall, had smooth walls and was probably used for a religious purpose of some kind instead of simply being a house. The most interesting part of Machu Picchu to me is that we do not know why the Incans decided to built their city on this mountain or what happened to them. When the city was discovered in 1911, there were no inhabitants left. The city had been abandoned so long that it was almost invisible, covered by so much vegetation that only parts of some walls showed. There are speculations however, and there have been many prestigious expeditions to uncover the mysteries, but no one has discovered anything concrete or 100% certain.

We then decided to climb Machu Picchu mountain. I remember at this point in the day it was only 10:30, but it felt like 4 in the afternoon! Our group of 7 was divided into two because of different climbing paces. It took my group 2 hours to reach the top. By that time, I was very sweaty and my legs would uncontrollably shake if I stood still. It was tough climbing. Stairs the entire way. At some points the stairs were wide and deep, but at other times they were almost like climbing a ladder because you could put your hands on the stairs in front of you and use all four limbs to climb. I had many bug bites on my ankles from sand flies.  This picture on the left shows my bites from the sand flies a week after we climbed the mountain. They were the most itchy bites that I have ever had. They never stopped itching, and they are starting to heal up now, 2 weeks after we climbed! However, despite these, the view on the top of Machu Picchu mountain was awesome. Gorgeous. Beautiful. Majestic. Fantastic. Breath-taking. Substitute any synonym for stunning that you can. All work, but just can't capture exactly how cool the view was. There was a breeze at the top that made you a little chilly after the long hike. Therewere blue skies with lots of white puffy clouds. On the top of the mountain there were other people hanging out, eating lunch, taking a nap, chillaxing, taking pictures, and generally absorbing the atmosphere. Here is a second video that shows our view. At the beginning I say, "Here we are at the summit of Machu Picchu mountain." Excuse the rapidity and lack of focus. Below is one more photo of all of us. This is one of my favorite photos of the Machu Picchu day because we had just climbed and were semi exhausted, but you can see how happy we are and how much fun we were having. Plus, once someone yells, "Let's do a silly one!" you have to make a face and do something crazy.

It took us just over an hour to climb down from the mountain, but we had a long way to go until we could actually rest. We talked to one of the park guards to learn a little about the park, then we hiked down the hill to Aguas Calientes. We were very tired, but excited to be there. We had fun running into weird stairs like these ones in my picture on the left. We also savored the pizza that we ate in a little restaurant once we actually finished hiking. This pizza and a coca-cola gave me a much needed pick-up for the rest of our travels that day. After picking up out things at our hostel in Aguas Calientes, I lazily dragged my swollen ankles and tired legs past the soccer field that always seemed to be buzzing with people,  took one last longing look at the humongous V-shaped mountains, and boarded the train that took us back to Ollantaytambo. After that, we grabbed a van back to Cusco. I gratefully took a shower and hit the hay. We slept very late the next day :)